XPRIZE Wildfire Awards $4.55M to Innovators Advancing Wildfire Detection and Response

Global Competition Recognizes Breakthrough Progress in Technologies Designed to Detect and Address Wildfires at Their Earliest, Most Controllable Stage

NEW YORK, Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- XPRIZE, the world's leader in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions to solve humanity's grand challenges, today announced awardees across both tracks of XPRIZE Wildfire, an $11 million global competition launched in 2023 to accelerate innovation in firefighting technologies. The awardees were announced during the XPRIZE Wildfire Awards Ceremony held at the New York City Fire Museum.

XPRIZE Wildfire was designed to develop new technologies to help prevent destructive wildfires, enabling humanity and beneficial wildfires to safely coexist. Sponsored by PG&E and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation as well as Minderoo Foundation and Lockheed Martin, the competition challenged teams across two complementary tracks, Space-Based Wildfire Detection & Intelligence and Autonomous Wildfire Response. Together, teams within the two tracks aimed to prove that speed, accuracy and autonomy can transform how wildfires are detected and addressed at the incipient stage, their earliest, most controllable stage, to shorten the time between detection and rapid response, inform management practices and minimize negative impacts. 

"Destructive wildfires are becoming more extreme, costly and difficult to manage, making faster, more effective approaches increasingly urgent," said Andrea Santy, XPRIZE Wildfire Executive Program Director. "These teams pushed the boundaries of what is possible today, demonstrating meaningful advances in wildfire detection and response while helping identify where continued innovation is needed to move these technologies toward real-world deployment at scale."

Following rigorous Finals Testing under real-world conditions, XPRIZE is recognizing teams for standout achievements that demonstrate meaningful progress toward that goal:

Track A: Space-Based Wildfire Detection & Intelligence
Track A challenged teams to utilize space-based Earth Observation data synthesized with artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect, characterize and report wildfires faster and more accurately across vast landscapes.

XPRIZE awarded $1.05 million across five Track A teams, recognizing meaningful advances in space-based wildfire detection and intelligence. Judges recognized progress in multi-sensor system integration, detection methodology, commercial readiness, operational capabilities, and innovative algorithms. The results also helped identify key technical gaps that must be addressed to enable reliable, real-time wildfire detection from space.

• 1st Place – System Integration Awardee, $500,000: SIRIUS Wildfire Alliance
  SIRIUS Wildfire Alliance demonstrated comprehensive end-to-end and system integration methodology, integrating SAR and optical data to support fire characterization and spread modeling.
• 2nd Place – Methodological Innovation Awardee, $250,000: Team Snuffed
  Team Snuffed developed a probabilistic data-fusion framework designed to provide transparent, auditable and uncertainty-aware wildfire detection, with strong firefighter-facing usability.
• Special Recognition, Commercial Viability, $100,000: MyRadar
  As a commercially mature team, MyRadar utilized upstream satellite acquisition and demonstrated spatial precision.
• Special Recognition, Operational Deliverable, $100,000: DeepFire
  DeepFire demonstrated an operational fire-spread-alert capability designed to support wildfire detection and intelligence.
• Special Recognition, Innovative Algorithm Application, $100,000: Mayday.AI
  Mayday.AI applied an algorithm originally developed for volcanic-ash detection to identify wildfire smoke plumes through cloud cover.

"When Minderoo backed this challenge, we set a clear goal: find fires faster and give firefighters better information," said Minderoo Foundation's Dr. Andrew Forrest AO. "Earlier this year, the finalist teams put their technologies to the test in real-world conditions alongside the NSW Rural Fire Service. Innovation only makes a difference when it works where lives, livelihoods and landscapes are on the line. These teams have shown what is possible."

Track B: Autonomous Wildfire Response
In June 2026, Autonomous Wildfire Response competitors put their solutions to the test in the Alaskan wilderness. Teams were challenged to autonomously detect and completely suppress a high-risk fire within 10 minutes of ignition across 1,000 km² of challenging terrain, without disturbing nearby decoy fires.

The XPRIZE Wildfire Judging Panel awarded $3.5 million across three Track B Finalist teams, recognizing distinct breakthroughs across the autonomous wildfire response cycle:

• First Place Awardee, $1.2 Million: Anduril Industries Anduril's modular Lattice software platform provided an integrated detection-to-suppression integrated pathway for unifying cameras, sensors and drones.
• Second Place Awardee, $800,000: Dryad Networks Dryad's Silvanet, a 170-sensor persistent field network, combined with their Silvaguard drones, demonstrated end-to-end autonomy.
• Third Place Awardee, $500,000: AURA Foresight AURA successfully demonstrated autonomous and persistent detection, meeting the critical 10-minute detection gate.

The Lockheed Martin Accurate Detection Intelligence Bonus Prize of $1 million was awarded to Anduril Industries for their rapid and precise multi-sensor detector performance.

"Witnessing the ingenuity of the competing teams reinforces our belief that making the most progress requires a firefighter-first mindset in order to innovate within the realities of the frontline," said Adam Broecker, Vice President, LM Evolve, Lockheed Martin. "Lockheed Martin is proud to support an initiative that pushes the boundaries of autonomous detection and rapid response. While the final prize remains on the horizon, every milestone achieved in this competition brings us closer to giving firefighters, communities, and mutual aid networks the transformative tools they need to stay ahead of the fire."

Together, the results across both tracks demonstrate breakthrough progress in how wildfires can be autonomously detected and addressed at the incipient stage. This final milestone demonstrates meaningful progress toward XPRIZE Wildfire's goal of a future where emerging fires can be identified and addressed faster — before they become large-scale disasters — while also helping define the work still needed to move these technologies toward broader real-world deployment.

"We are proud to be the Impact Phase Partner of XPRIZE Wildfire, supporting innovators developing breakthrough technologies that can transform how wildfires are detected and addressed in the critical early moments when every second counts," said Mark Quinlan, Chief Safety Officer and Senior Vice President, Wildfire, Emergency and Operations, PG&E. " Protecting our customers and the hometowns we serve from wildfire risk is one of PG&E's most important responsibilities. Over the past several years, we have strengthened our wildfire prevention approach through multiple layers of protection and mitigation, but we know there is always more work to do. We are grateful for our partnership with XPRIZE and the innovators participating in XPRIZE Wildfire. Together, we can help bridge the gap between innovation and deployment and accelerate solutions that will enhance safety for all facing the threat of wildfire."

"XPRIZE Wildfire has highlighted both the urgency of this challenge and the need to invest in innovative, practical solutions," said Genny Biggs, Program Director of the Wildfire Resilience Initiative at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. "Competing teams helped advance our understanding of what's possible today, as well as the technical gaps that will have to be filled to deliver faster, more actionable intelligence in the future."

From Competition to Real-World Impact

The conclusion of XPRIZE Wildfire marks a major milestone, but not the end of the work. The competition will now move into a 12- to 15-month Impact Phase focused on helping translate promising technologies from both tracks into durable, deployable solutions for real-world wildfire management.

Through the Impact Phase, XPRIZE aims to build on the competition's momentum and accelerate adoption, investment and collaboration so emerging technologies can strengthen how wildfires are detected, managed and addressed before they become destructive.

"From the beginning, our hope for XPRIZE Wildfire was to change what is possible in the fight against destructive wildfires," said Anousheh Ansari, Chief Executive Officer, XPRIZE. "The progress we are celebrating now is an important step, but the true impact of this competition will be measured by what happens next. We hope to see these innovations utilized by communities and responders to detect and address fires sooner, creating a future where fires can be detected and addressed before they become destructive."

XPRIZE Wildfire is offered in partnership with Co-Title Sponsors Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Presenting Sponsor and Co-Designer of XPRIZE Space-Based Wildfire Detection and Intelligence Track Minderoo Foundation, Accurate Detection Intelligence Bonus Prize Sponsor Lockheed Martin and Supporting Sponsors Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Costa Navarino, American Family Insurance, Fairfax Financial, the Roddenberry Foundation, and individual benefactors. PG&E is the lead sponsor of the Impact Phase.

About XPRIZE
XPRIZE is the recognized global leader in designing and executing large-scale competitions to solve humanity's greatest challenges. For over 30 years, our unique model has democratized crowd-sourced innovation and scientifically scalable solutions that accelerate a more equitable and abundant future. Donate, learn more, and co-architect a world of abundance with us at xprize.org.

About Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation fosters path-breaking scientific discovery, environmental conservation, patient care improvements and preservation of the special character of the Bay Area. Visit Moore.org or follow @MooreFound.

About PG&E

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG), is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than 16 million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit www.pge.com and www.pge.com/en/newsroom.html.

About Minderoo Foundation

Minderoo Foundation is one of Australasia's largest philanthropies, with AUD$2.6 billion funds invested in philanthropic causes. These causes range from reducing the harm caused by fire and flood, eliminating childhood cancer to improving early childhood education, ending modern slavery and driving accountability in and responsibility for global overfishing, plastic pollution, global warming and the tech ecosystem. Visit minderoo.org or follow @minderoo.

About Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is a global defense technology company driving innovation and advancing scientific discovery. Our all-domain mission solutions and 21st Century Security® vision accelerate the delivery of transformative technologies to ensure those we serve always stay ahead of ready. More information at Lockheedmartin.com.

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